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The paintings
of Denny McCoy and the sculpture of Troy Woods transformed the dberman
gallery into a secular temple of art. Upon entering, one felt immediately
a palpable quietness, much like that in the British Museum's Elgin
Marbles gallery. The soft-gray walls were lined with McCoy's gently
glowing canvases, and with Woods's sconce-like wall pieces. One had
the impression of being led by their art through a slow processional
around the perimeter of the room, and along both sides of the diagonal,
center wall. Being in the environment created by their works put one
automatically into a contemplative state.
The vertical gesture of both artists' works--McCoy's stripes, and
Woods's upright forms--contributed to the meditative mood, directing
one's attention upward toward that aerial realm which has such ancient
associations with the locus of the numinous. Also, the extremely fine
technical execution exhibited by the two artists endows their objects
with meaning that transcends the ordinary realities of paint and metal.
If this all sounds a bit too ethereal, rest assured that the overall
peacefulness of McCoy's and Woods' installation is counterbalanced
by aspects of their work that are very much of the earth. McCoy's
acrylic paintings on canvas are about illusion and how the human eye
perceives color and value. Woods' metal and wood sculptures are about
how light plays on their forms and casts their shadows on the walls.
And, their works are not nouns; they are active verbs, requiring significant
participation on the part of the viewer.
For example, one must stand in front of McCoy's pastel, white-tinted
paintings and look at them intently for several, long minutes before
all their stripes become fully visible. Even then, one cannot be entirely
sure; they do not give up their information easily. As one concentrates,
subtle forms that were not immediately perceptible begin to emerge;
hidden colors slowly appear. And then, just as one has identified
a seeming pattern in the rhythm of the stripes, one refuses to appear
where it is expected. The artist enjoys making this hard for us. He
provides us with hints and forces us to guess. He has said of this
uncertainty, this discomforting illusion, "At the edge of a cliff,
you see things differently."
McCoy is in love with illusion, and with optics. This is what distinguishes
him from other painters of the barely there--Bridget Riley, Robert
Ryman--artists with whom he is often compared. McCoy juxtaposes two
stripes of identical hues, and makes them look like different colors
by virtue of distinct flanking colors, or of distinct textures, or
of positions on opposite sides of the composition. He sets up dynamic
borders between his stripes. These indistinct lines function like
Duchamp's "infra-thin" membranes, allowing fluid optical
passage between the bars of color. As one's eye moves horizontally
among the subtly nuanced stripes, one is drawn simultaneously into
the pictorial space of the compositions. Although illusionistic space
is not a primary ingredient in these canvases, there does seem to
be a beckoning depth near the center of many of them. This works best
in the slightly horizontal proportions and scale of works like Mother
Neff, for example.
In dberman gallery, the artist is aided in his visual teasing by nature,
for as the natural light changes with the variations in the sky, his
canvases change color and value. This responsiveness of his works
to variations in atmospheric phenomena does not contradict the artist's
assertion that his works do not imitate nature, but rather have the
same, associative relationship to it as music. In the presence of
McCoy's paintings, one cannot help sensing references to aquamarine
water, blue sky, white fog, mellow sunlight, the muted hues of twilight,
even ripe fruit. McCoy does subvert, however, the physicality of his
works by carefully hiding his brushstrokes, and he reminds us that
they are, in fact, two-dimensional illusions, by confining the paint
to the front surfaces of the canvases. At times, he seems ambivalent
about whether to reveal his hand at all, allowing only rarely a brush
stroke to be visible, and only one, tiny drop of paint in seven paintings.
The combined stainless steel and wood sculptures of Troy Woods are
an effective counterpoint in the exhibition because they themselves
are so physically active. They thrust, drip, blow, bud, flame,and
hang. Also, they reference natural forms in a more concrete way, suggesting
sprouts, bulbs, torches, tar. Their lyrical lines, perfectly smooth
surfaces, and exquisite craftsmanship justify their existence on the
grounds of beauty alone. Yet, their power derives from some deeper
source, maybe, for example, from a connection to ritual and ceremony
in a culture we can only imagine. CF5-9, a set of five silvery rods
topped with bronze wisps of flame, seems to illuminate a wall in some
timeless space.
Like McCoy, Woods is an illusionist. His elegant TC3, for example,
is a thin leaf of wood carved to appear as though it is blowing in
a gentle breeze, its shadow dancing gracefully on the wall. He has
used his blonde and ebony woods, and when appropriate, their grain
patterns, to support his illusions of budding, sprouting, stretching,
and wrapping. The vertical elegance of many of the artist's forms
recall Giacometti, but in contrast to that artist's freestanding and
sometimes almost levitated objects, Woods keeps his tucked close to
the wall, in all cases but one of his nine pieces. This has the effect
of grounding the works, and anchoring them in reality. It also donates
to them an industrial, quasi-functional character that seems true
to their materials and processes.
The paradox of Woods's works is that the immaculate precision of his
workmanship begs for attention, yet their delicate, linear morphology,
their reflection of light, and their collaboration with their own
shadows, dematerializes them. The artist leads us into a liminal space
that is somewhere between matter and spirit. Maybe that is part of
the magic of both of these artists; they each, in different ways,
leave us in a place I just heard a street preacher describe as "standin'
in the gap." And that is not a bad place for the viewer, for
it permits us our own options, and remains open to our own movement
in either or both directions.
Mark L. Smith, PhD
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